The Moon Occluding The Sun During An Eclipse. The Fine Threads You Can See Are Part Of The Solar Corona,

The Icy Comet

This image of Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) was taken at the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz

Image credit: NASA/ National Science Foundation

M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy [3450 x 3697]

Light Echoes from V838 Mon

For reasons unknown, star V838 Mon’s outer surface suddenly greatly expanded with the result that it became the brightest star in the entire Milky Way Galaxy in January 2002. Then, just as suddenly, it faded. A stellar flash like this has never been seen before.

It’s true that supernovae and novae expel matter out into space. But while the V838 Mon flash appears to expel material into space, what is seen here is actually an outwardly moving light echo of the bright flash. In a light echo, light from the flash is reflected by successively more distant rings in the ambient interstellar dust that already surrounded the star.

V838 Mon lies about 20,000 light years away toward the constellation of Monoceros the unicorn. In this Hubble Space Telescope image from February 2004, the light echo is about six light years in diameter.

Image Credit: NASA, APOD, ESA, H. E. Bond (STScI)

M104: The Sombrero Galaxy.

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“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.” – Carl Sagan

Beware of the Big, Bad Wolf

Visible within the center of the Crescent nebula is what’s classified as a Wolf-Rayet star. This star is a staggering 250,000 times brighter than the Sun, 15 times more massive, and 3.3 times larger. Its surface temperature is nearly 70,000° C/ 125,000° F. At just 4.7 million years old, it is already toward the end of it’s life and is shedding its outer envelope, ejecting the equivalent of the Sun’s mass every 10,000 years. Within a few hundred thousand years, it is expected to explode as a supernova.   (Image Credit: Michael Miller, Jimmy Walker)

Jupiter’s moon, Callisto.

Jupiter’s south pole, taken by Cassini

Close-up of M27, the Dumbbell Nebula

Credit: NASA/ESA, Hubble

Starburst galaxy NGC 4449 in the M94 galaxy group 13 million light-years away (Hubble image)